WildEarth Guardians

Friday, August 27, 2010
WildEarth Guardians and REI Team Up for Youth and Rivers

REI Funds WildEarth Guardians Stream Team Events for Local Students
Contact: Carol Norton (505) 988-9126 x1150

Santa Fe—WildEarth Guardians recently partnered with REI, outdoor gear and apparel retailer, to reconnect students in northern New Mexico with local rivers and streams. For nearly a decade, WildEarth Guardians’ Stream Team events have successfully engaged community members in planting trees that restore rivers. Thanks to REI and a nomination from the Santa Fe REI store, Stream Team will be part of a youth outreach project this year.

The goal of both REI and WildEarth Guardians is to engage volunteers in active environmental stewardship to maintain, enhance and restore outdoor recreational areas. The youth Stream Team project will focus on the Jemez Mountains National Recreation Area, which has been identified as one of two places in New Mexico where climate change is already having a measurable affect on water and wildlife. WildEarth Guardians has also identified the region as one of its highest priorities for ecological restoration and enhancing community awareness.

The intention of the project is to work with several teachers at high schools in urban and rural areas, including pueblos, as well as with local youth leadership development organizations to engage young people in the work of river restoration. Not surprisingly, the continued loss, degradation and diminishment of the ecological integrity of our rivers and streams have resulted in a similar loss of the social and cultural connection between rivers and communities. Unfortunately, many people no longer recognize that our rivers are the lifeblood of our landscapes and human communities, nor do they understand our inextricable dependence upon them.

With the support of a $5,000 grant from REI, WildEarth Guardians will build a strong cadre of student environmental leaders who can join us in the maintenance, enhancement and restoration of one of New Mexico’s most prized outdoor recreational areas, the Jemez Mountains. The public lands and rivers of the Jemez Mountains serve Albuquerque and Santa Fe as well as many rural communities for outdoor recreation pursuits that include world-class mountain biking, hiking, backpacking, fishing, rock-climbing, skiing and camping.

Stream Team events throughout New Mexico and Arizona have been hugely successful in restoring degraded waterways. Once-barren landscapes thrive after native cottonwood and willow trees as well as bushes and grasses are planted along streamsides. This restoration creates rivers that can meander more naturally and hold purer and cooler water, and most importantly provide healthy wildlife habitat. View before and after photos in the “Gotta See It to Believe It” video